Islamic Jihad Leader: Re-examine 'Ceasefire' with Israel

The leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group, Ramadan Shallah, says it is time to re-examine the ceasefire with Israel.

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Elad Benari, 05/10/12 04:12

Islamic Jihad rally

Israel news photo: Israel news photo: Flash 90

The leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group, Ramadan Shallah, said on Thursday that it is time to re-examine the ceasefire with Israel, which terrorists from Gaza usually break in any case.

In a recorded speech to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Jihad, Shallah said that all arrangements with Israel have failed miserably.

"We object to the prevention of the realization of the armed struggle or taking it out of the agenda, and we support the possibility to agree on a period of calm, but if this calm becomes open-ended it causes a risk to the struggle and to the Palestinian problem,” he said in the speech, translated by Arab affairs expert Dalit Halevi. “We demand that this policy be reconsidered.”

Shallah said there were both positive and negative aspects for Palestinian Authority Arabs in the Arab Spring. On the one hand, he said, the Arab Spring has drawn attention away from PA Arabs, a fact which he said gives an advantage to Israel, which exploits the situation to establish facts on the ground.

On the other hand, said Shallah, the Arab Spring opens the possibility to recruit greater support from the Arab and Islamic world for the PA, and the question at hand is when this will be translated into action.

He said that “we do not expect and do not demand that anyone start a war against Israel for Palestine tomorrow, even if this is an obligation, but we say that a diplomatic campaign can be launched for Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is facing collapse because of the underground excavations for the purpose of the construction of the false Temple.”

The ceasefire to which he was referring is likely one that was brokered by Egypt in June after Gaza-based terrorists fired more than 100 rockets at Israel within several days.

Such “ceasefires” are usually announced by Gaza’s Hamas rulers after each round of escalation, but the Gaza-based terrorist groups, the Islamic Jihad included, always take advantage of these “ceasefires” to periodically send a reminder to Israelis that they have the ability to fire rockets.